ColdFusion 9 Testing, Staging and Development Changes to EULA

A commenter on my last post asked about the portion of the EULA that addressed testing and development servers.

When you read the EULA you’ll see:

3.1.3 If Licensee purchases one or more Production Software licenses, then Adobe also grants Licensee the
right to install and use the Software as Development Software for internal development, testing and staging.

It’s important to note that this means that you can install additional copies of your production server in Standard or Enterprise (whichever license you bought) to take one of these roles.  The Developer Edition of ColdFusion is still limited to 3 IPs but your shared development server with Standard or Enterprise will not be limited.

Happy developing, testing, and staging.

Published by tpryan

42 thoughts on “ColdFusion 9 Testing, Staging and Development Changes to EULA”

  1. Hey Terry, thanks for the news. I realize it’s exciting times as you write this early at Max in LA today, but to be clear for posterity … 🙂

    You say “this means that you can install additional copies of your production server in Standard or Enterprise (which ever license you bought) to take one of these roles.”

    Just to be clear, do you mean “you can install additional copies of your production license key”?

    And some will surely ask: I assume this means one can install that license key onto any other physical or virtual server, as long as the use of CF on that server is designated solely for testing or development purposes, right?

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  5. @Terry,

    Thanks for clearing this up a bit. It’s fantastic news and will certainly make it easier to get things upgraded. 🙂

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  7. Sorry to have to muddy the waters, but this is all very important to many, so some other things seem worth clarifying.

    On closer examination of the EULA (http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/adobe_coldFusion_combined_20090811_0930.pdf), it appears that we can’t really install “copies” of the production license key, meaning onto multiple servers, if we’ve purchased only one for production. It seems we can only use the license key on as many dev/test/staging servers as we have purchased production keys:

    “the total number of Computers used to operate the Development Software [can] not exceed the licensed number of Servers”

    Now, that’s not a real tragedy. The offer to do even one per license is a certainly a step up for many. But people should be aware of this issue. Can you confirm that I’m reading this right, Terry?

    Also, in case folks wondered if there was any difference between where the prod server was installed and where these dev/test/staging servers could be installed, it seems that the dev/test/staging server must be on the same network as the licensed servers, as it says we can only “install the Development Software on Servers connected to Licensee’s Internal Network”.

    Of course, “connected to licensee’s internal network” is rather vague (and to be clear, IANAL: I am not a lawyer.) I can see some wanting to have the prod server license on a managed host box while the test/staging use would be done on a server internal to the company. That would not seem supported.

    Before we conclude that I’m reading things right, though, some may be surprised to see the same paragraph indicating that we cannot “(ii) access the Development Software from more than a single IP address at any given time”. I can understand that for the free Dev edition but that would seem counter to a dev/test/staging server where production load may be replicated for testing purposes, and that may come from a scattered set of servers sending the load, or just scattered testers running at once.

    I’m wondering if perhaps these last two points really apply just to the free developer edition (though even that is not technically limited to just one IP address). I think the problem is that someone tried to cover both the free Dev edition and these “Production Software licenses…[used] as Development Software” in the singel section 3.2.

    Can you get clarification on these things, Terry?

    I do hope these questions and their answers only help people. I was torn, as surely some would say “well why not let it be vague? why press for an answer, because if Adobe answers it takes away any wiggle room?”. But there are people whose companies really want to do things by the book, and this news is compelling.

    It would just be unfortunate if they were left with a misinterpretation based on attempts here to keep things concise. Certainly, it’s great that Terry has pointed it out, and those who want to play fast and loose can just deny they ever saw this clarification. 🙂 But I think your lawyers (or higher ups you report to) will want these clarifications. More than that, perhaps the wording of that section 3.2 might be reconsidered to split out the two “Dev” uses, if they really are different. Or someone may point out that I’ve simply read things wrong.

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  14. (IDNWFA: I Do Not Work For Adobe) – BUT…

    Perhaps Charlie just got a little confused in all the legal mumbo-jumbo? When I read “connected to licensee’s internal network” – I take it to mean that “the licensee” is the company or individual who owns the license, not the company who owns, operates, or otherwise has possession of the production server. So, if that’s correct, then having your production server(s) managed and your development server(s) in-house would be acceptable. What wouldn’t seem to be permitted would be to have your development/staging server(s) managed externally.

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  17. So I’m not a lawyer. So I have only so much say here. But I think some of this language in intended to address issues surrounding hosting. Someone asked at one of the Unconference sessions that is they lease a VPN from a provider with a standalone license does that count towards them having a development/testing box. This language seems to properly enforce the right answer “No.”

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  18. Fair enough, but a couple questions still stand.

    @Adam T. I’ll admit I may *have* been a little confused in my question of where the dev/staging license was allowed. It wasn’t that I wondered if the “owner of the server” was the licensee, but rather I was just thinking that where the production license was installed might become the “internal network” in this verbiage. I see now that I missed the term being defined in the EULA definitions section. That point is now clear. Still, I hope that drawing out the point about how this test/staging server must be on the “internal network” may help someone.

    @Terry, as for your reply about VPN access, I see now that that too is covered in the definition section for “internal network”. I hadn’t asked about it, but I sense that you’re offering it in response to my question about what IP addresses can access this dev/test/staging server. While the definition section does say that’s allowed, it still doesn’t address the point I made about a later section that seems to counter it.

    Let me repeat and condense that, as well as the first question I raised in my last comment:

    – do I have it correct that this clause, “(ii) access the Development Software from more than a single IP address at any given time”, does apply to this dev/test/staging servers using the production license key? It would seem it should not, and should apply only to the free Dev edition (in which case it’s still more than just “a single” IP address it allows), but that’s not the way it’s worded if you read the section. This seems an important point.

    – do I have it correct that a single purchase of a production license allows only a single use of that license on one other server for dev or test or staging? So that if one wants, say, test and staging, they will still need to buy another license for the 2nd of those two?

    Is it appropriate for us to seek answers to these here? You say you’re not a lawyer, and we appreciate that of course, but I think folks here might hope that we could get clarifications from someone at Adobe on these points. (And that’s why I asked here, rather than start my own blog entry, so I apologize for the long comments.)

    If you don’t think it’s appropriate for these points to be addressed here, is there a better place we should be asking? I’ll say that with so many subscribing to hear the answers, I hope no one would tell us we should each ask directly ourselves.

    As always, just trying to help (thanks for recognizing that, Brian).

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  19. The IP restriction does indeed refer to the “Development Edition” and not a “standard or enterprise license installed as a shared development box.”

    The purchase of a production license should enable as many backend systems that you want, as long as they are not full production, or provide service to full production machines. (can’t have multiple backend workhorses doing work for production servers.) The EULA might be read the other way, but our intention was what I said.

    In anycase, we don’t have Adobe police. The rules here are meant to enable you to have a proper environment, that is the spirit of those rules. We’re not going to hunt people down.

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  20. Awesome, thanks so much for the clarifications, Terry. We’ll all sleep better, and indeed feel a lot better, about taking advantage of this great improvement in the licensing. Thanks for your patience with me.

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  23. @tpryan

    The “we’re not gonna hunt you down” is helpful, except that Adobe, Apple, Msoft and all those are not in the business of hunting people down. The BSA is.

    Can Adobe PLEASE make sure that the BSA is aware of this license change and to expect companies to have multiple physical servers installed for devlopment, when it will appear that they are licensed for less.

    Having been through a recent BSA audit, these guys will not interact with the companies they represent if you have licensing questions. They are heavy handed, come down like a police force with threatening action right off the bat and do not communicate their intention in any way.

    What happened with me was an employee who was a secretary, whose husband has an IT consulting business recently was terminated, we also terminated the consulting company from any future work, we are certain that this person reported to the BSA that we had unlicensed software rampant in the organization, which we do not, we are very careful about controlling software and licensing. Needless to say the BSA sent letters demanding a full software audit with all supporting documentation or they would take legal action on behalf of their members. We ended up ok and had no issues but it was big headache. One issue was reporting to them instances where we had the same license for software installed on two machines, same persons machine, one desktop, one laptop, allowed by the written EULA and they tried to tell us it was not.

    If adobe doesn’t update the BSA with the intent of this license change it could cause issues for people that may face a future BSA audit.

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  26. The purchase of a production license should enable as many backend systems that you want, as long as they are not full production, or provide service to full production machines. (can’t have multiple backend workhorses doing work for production servers.) The EULA might be read the other way, but our intention was what I said.

    Great post!!

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  27. So I have only so much say here. But I think some of this language in intended to address issues surrounding hosting. Someone asked at one of the Unconference sessions that is they lease a VPN from a provider with a standalone license does that count towards them having a development/testing box.

    Thanks!!

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  31. Thanks for the post. Is there any way to activate the license key on the Dev server without reinstalling? i.e. Through CF administrator

    And just so we are clear…

    I have a production system running on a server on another network at another location that has CF9 installed using our single license key.

    I am still allowed to use that license key for our dev server at our office because at least 5 people need to access it for development purposes. Right?

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  32. Added some further point to this process…

    I have a system, running on a server at another location that has vertical streams installed using our single license key installer.
    Would it be possible to add this key installer to multiple sites?

    It says so here:
    “The purchase of a production license should enable as many backend systems that you want, as long as they are not full production, or provide service to full production machines. (can’t have multiple backend workhorses doing work for production servers.) The EULA might be read the other way, but our intention was what I said.”

    ** giorgio **

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  33. Before we conclude that I’m reading things right, though, some may be surprised to see the same paragraph indicating that we cannot “(ii) access the Development Software from more than a single IP address at any given time”. I can understand that for the free Dev edition but that would seem counter to a dev/test/staging server where production load may be replicated for testing purposes, and that may come from a scattered set of servers sending the load, or just scattered testers running at once.

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  35. So to be clear, if I have (think a big enterprise level organization here):

    server 1> a public facing cf 9 production server accessed by thousands
    server 1a> a public facing cf9 server for testing (with the enterprise licence key from 1) accessed by groups of testers (less than 100) before deploying applications to server 1

    server 2> an internal facing cf 9 production server
    server 2a> an internal facing cf9 server for testing (with the enterprise licence key from 2) accessed by groups of testers (less than 100)
    server 3a> an internal facing cf9 server for development (with the enterprise licence key from 2) accessed by developers (less than 20)

    Is this is considered ok? Currently we have 5 CF8 licences, so I am trying to understand if this EULA change actually means we only need 2 licences because we have 2 production servers, and if the 3 testing and development servers do not require separate licences so that multiple users may access it simultaneously?

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  37. Great information so far guys, thanks!

    Can anyone tell me how these changes might affect disaster recorvery?

    For example I have two data centres running an ESX host each. On each host there is VM of our ColdFusion production server. Only one of the VMs is powered on, the other is there incase the primary one goes down.

    Would I need to buy two enterprise licenses because the VMs are on seperate boxes? or only one because both VMs will never be powered on at the same time.

    Thanks!

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  38. I’m really excited about this, but my license controller isn’t quite satisfied with the clarification in comment #19 since this is a personal blog and because of the disclaimer at the bottom. Is there anywhere more “official” that the multiple test/stage/dev servers for the same production server question is explained?

    Also, we are potentially moving to a load-balancing scenario in the future. Our production environment would continue to be a single site but would be served by two load-balanced servers. Would this require an additional license?

    Thanks so much!

    JohnE

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  40. JohnE Load balancing would require two licenses as both of them would be serving production content at the same time.

    As for more official… This is just an explanation of the EULA. So the EULA would be the thing to have the comptroller look at.

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    1. Just updating this once again: the link for Terry’s “prior” blog entry (mentioned at the outset here) is now https://blog.terrenceryan.com/index.php/coldfusion-9-eula-changes/.

      Yep, I’d commented 5 years when I found the URL had changed since the original post 10 years ago. It’s still something people do find and discuss. 🙂

      FWIW, the terms changed in later releases. If you read the EULA closely, you will see that as of CF2016, there’s now a difference about this based on whether you are running CF Standard or Enterprise. (With Enterprise you can use a key for one test/stage/dev server, with Standard you can do it if you get more than one Standard license. ) Again, see the EULA for more. It’s in a file in the top-lvel directory where CF is installed.

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